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pregnant with purpose

This post is dedicated to my loving, goofy, strong and courageous husband.

I haven’t written here in awhile, I don’t seem to be very consistent with this whole blog thing. I guess i should cut myself some slack though, I do have a really cute baby who is pretty darn distracting! It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is his half birthday….where have the past six months gone?! He giggles, has two teeth, rolls around, almost sits up by himself, fits pumps, loves peek a boo and sometimes says “ma!” over and over again until i give him my undivided attention. And although the surprise of my son’s existence has been a wonderful adjustment to my life and I would never trade him for anything, the direction and plans I thought that Patrick and I had for our life has dramatically changed. I would best explain the nine months of my pregnancy as a slight identity crisis. I say this because the moment I found out Xander would be joining our little family, my focus completely shifted to what was best for me to what would be best for my baby, yet it took me a long time to fully adjust to the idea of becoming a mother. I could no longer consider spending the summer in Ghana with my husband because I would be (miserably) very pregnant trying to survive the humidity of NY and attending birthing classes and my baby shower. Moving after graduating from school would now mean that my son wouldn’t see his grandparents very often, oh and that school thing would also be on hold. The list goes on and on with the changes of my future and some of the dreams that I had to let go of the moment I saw the two little blue lines. I took my time coming to terms with these realities, and I spent a lot of tearful nights asking God, “what do I do now?”.

These memories returned to me recently when we had a couple days of thinking that Xander might become a big brother a LOT sooner than we had ever expected. This past week was one of the longest weeks of my life, and I had emotions running very high. I knew the symptoms of early pregnancy all to well, it was last year around this time that I was experiencing them for the first time. The fear of my purpose and direction in life resurfaced and a small voice in my head told me a lot of lies, some included, “You will never accomplish anything now. Another child would be a mistake and you will not love him/her. You wont finish school. Say goodbye to overseas missions, forever. (and ‘you will never sleep again was the scariest’)” I began to get depressed. Everywhere I looked I saw things I would not be able to do and thought of how others might see me as a failure. I considered how Xander would react to having to share me so soon, and how my body would scream at me daily for having to be stretched so big so soon again. I came to the conclusion that I would miss out on the purpose that God had for me and that I needed to say goodbye to the dreams God had placed in my heart.

Until my husband spoke life to me.

It’s funny how even when he speaks truth that my heart knows is true I still have to fight him on it.

He looked at me with serious eyes and explained to me how we shouldn’t see this situation as something that would change the course of our purpose or the purpose and plans we believe God has for us, but we should instead seek to find purpose in the life we already are living. It’s not about purpose of life but purpose in life.

It was not until then that I was able to let go and surrender to God and say ‘I trust You’…. and then we found out we were NOT having another baby in nine months so I jumped up and down and danced for the whole world to know about it at 6AM this morning. I feel blessed that my body can get more time to rest before pushing out another huge baby, but also that my husband could minister to me in what I thought was a crisis for our family.

I find rest knowing that God’s grace for my family’s future is sufficient.